Hi Has been,

You're forgetting to include (off-balance-sheet, as it were) the BEL, the Bureaucracy Expansion Levy.

Chin up !

Joe

Hasbeen,

Two problems with any attempt to prune the federal public service:

- the exacerbation of the upwards classification drift. Staff at junior levels are rare; and,

- the bounce-back to even higher overall numbers with a change of government.

There are layers of managers all claiming to supervise the same few staff at the bottom. It is worthwhile for incoming ministers to inquire what proportion of staff have 'management', coordination', 'supervision', 'monitoring' and other euphemisms for watching others work as a significant (or any part!) of their duties.

The management overheads would shock a manager from the private sector.

A private contractor asking who manages in a PS department division will be referred up through layers of 'manager' to a division head. But when he asks who is actually responsible, he is directed downwards layer by layer to some junior saps who have no idea what is going on but are the nominated whipping boys when things go pear-shaped. Layer upon layer of 'managers' and all requiring management reporting to 'add value', but they don't supply any services. At the bottom, those management reports can waste hours daily and some entire days a month.

I do have a little idea onthebeach. One of my pit crew, when I was racing the Brabham was in the tax department. Each year, at PAYE return time they used to gather up most available staff, & send them out to the Sydney showgrounds.

They would fit out a couple of pavilions as huge offices, & pour thousands of tax returns in after the staff, & expect a real effort to get them processed quickly.

One night 4 of us were working on the car, preparing it for a race somewhere, & he started bitching about the indignity of this process. He was particularly upset at no lunch room. He was really upset at having to have his morning & afternoon tea at his desk, or to go out & sit on the grass to have it.

He was so precious about this that we burst out laughing. He was quite upset that we could not see the seriousness of no lunch room